Ongoing Feedback – Key To Successful Performance Management

The word “Performance” means a lot in the organizational sector. Organizations need to perform well in order to continue to sustain and secure their positions in competitive business landscapes. Therefore for any organization to perform well, the contribution from each of its employees should be optimal. Simply put, performance management is a process that provides feedback, accountability, and documentation for performance outcomes. It helps employees to channel their talents toward organizational goals. Regular performance management initiatives and feedback ensure that everyone coordinates their individual goals with those of the organization. Thus achieving true alignment between performance management and organizational strategy and ensuring that everyone is working toward fulfilling the same business mission. All this can be achieved easily with the help of a freewheeling constructive feedback system. 

Constructive feedback is vital to an employee’s ongoing development. From high flyers to under-performers and everyone in between, employees need timely, specific, and helpful feedback to reach their full potential. Positive and constructive feedback helps build confidence and clarifies expectations allowing people to learn from their mistakes. Clear and consistent feedback is essential to employee engagement. 

However, there are many times that performance management fails to deliver its expected outcomes. This is because it’s viewed as a bureaucratic system set in place by the HR department which occurs annually. Let’s take a strategic look at the performance management process with the help of a SWOT analysis for better understanding: 

Strengths:

• Performance evaluations can provide meaningful feedback to employees to help them better themselves professionally and personally.  

• Managers and employees who use the evaluation process to set performance goals can steadily increase job performance and overall human resources productivity over time. Making personal development a priority in your human resources department can help garner deeper loyalty in your workforce, as well.  
• Evaluating individual and group performance can also help ensure that pay raises and other incentives are distributed equitably to high performers, rather than being based on politics, nepotism or simply the length of service. 

Weakness: 

• Human handicaps such as the propensity to place more emphasis on recent events  rather than events further in the past can dampen the equity of a review. Hence, it fails to accurately judge employee potential accurately. 
• In most workplaces, annual performance reviews are used as the only opportunity to tell employees what’s working and what’s not. Employees should be provided with necessary resources to improve themselves constantly and should know the importance of continuous learning and a performance management system. 

• Performance evaluations are performed by people, which always leaves room for human error. Using people to judge and assess other people brings a range of challenges to the table, such as political influences, emotional influences and interpersonal issues. 

Opportunities: 

• Records-based performance evaluations can help companies identify rising stars, potential high flyers and weed out unproductive employees and employees that threaten the harmony of the workflow. 
• Programs like Let’s Buzz enable HR’s and leaders to assess employees on the basis of their passion, dedication and ownership towards their KRA’s and accordingly groom them according to their individual requirements. 

Threats: 

• If employees feel they’re being treated unfairly in evaluation, especially when pay raises and incentives are on the line, they can become extremely dissatisfied. 
• An inaccurate performance review system can cause high performers to leave the organization, or it can spread discontent throughout the informal communications network of the company. 
• The halo effect may prevent a manager from objectively evaluating the employee on all-round performance criteria thus risking employee disengagement which could eventually lead to a toxic workplace. 

When managed and delivered effectively, performance appraisals are an excellent way to communicate with employees, set goals, review progress and motivate workers. However, it has been observed that employees respond better when they hear regular and constructive feedback. This is where the function of performance management kicks begins. In defining the exact demeanour of performance management, what usually misses the spotlight is the ownership, responsibility and ultimate aim for this activity. So let’s talk about that for a moment. 

Performance Management is a team sport, where every player/individual contributes to one common goal and if we are able to draw a common scorecard and align individual goals to deliver the scorecard, we would do a world of good to the PMS process. 

– Kaustubh Sonalkar, CEO, Essar Corporate Services LLP 

[Text Wrapping Break]Who owns the performance management process and its success or failure? –  One might think it’s the function of the HR department and successful implementation and reasonable appraisals at the end of the activity is usually deemed as a success. Anything else is mostly deemed as a failure. Here’s an obvious hint for you! It’s not just the HR department or the people managers. The entire organization holds accountability for this process.  

• Culture affects performance: The culture of the organization has a critical role to play in performance management and reflects the efficacy of its employees. If your company’s culture does not reflect accountability and ownership for the quality of their work, it becomes difficult to gauge performance accurately. 
• Business managers ownership: Human resources can provide expert subject knowledge, integrate Her processes with organizational goals design the process, coach the Managers and train the people. Business Managers are the real-time HR Managers for the talent in their teams are directly responsible for their performance.
• Ownership works both ways: Both employee and manager need to be constructive and more responsible. Performance management is effective when an employee receives regular, valuable feedback and acts proactively to assist in the pursuit of furthering career goals and supporting the organization. While the leaders gain insight into workers’ skills and close any skill gaps. Thus linking performance management with organizational planning, systems, and processes. 

Good leaders who have their fingers on the pulse of their organizations will intuitively know which areas of performance must be addressed. But even the best talent programs won’t work if your people managers and your employees aren’t held accountable for participation.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]Why is participation so important? Because investing the right amount of time, effort, and resources in performance management can ensure better organizational standards and engaged workforce, therefore yielding better and more performance-oriented results. The following points were observed as a result of successful performance management-oriented cultures: 

• 22% higher shareholder returns (McKinsey) 
• 30% increase in company value (Watson Wyatt) 
• 19% increase in operating income (Towers Watson) 

These numbers are great and to be frank, not difficult to achieve with the right approach. Managing performance becomes key to organizational growth when you are working towards scalable and sustainable growth. So what should you do to effectively manage performance?[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]1. Set clear goals and expectations – Ensure personal goals in some way contribute to the achievement of the organization’s high-level goals. Your managers and employees must participate in writing their own goals. This way they feel more accountable. Give them annual training on how to write effective goals (Tip: use the SMART goals approach. It’s simple yet effective and easy to implement). Make it a priority in your organization to communicate the progress and status of goal achievement, but ensure that you don’t pressurize your people. Discuss with them on their comfort with the process and take joint decisions on the reporting and feedback systems.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]In terms of setting expectations, make sure managers and employees review goals set for the year. Use organizational and job-specific competencies to clarify expectations and help describe what it takes to be successful in a role. 

2. Provide regular feedback –Think of feedback and recognition as an investment in future performance. Take a new approach to feedback; prompt your HR department to engage in both formal and informal feedback with managers. Allow them space and freedom to voice their concerns without having to go through the risk of being pulled up (which is a major concern while voicing opinions). You can adapt and implement Let’sBuzzz within the organization which monitors employee/ organizations overall mood. Effective and timely feedback is a critical component of a successful performance management program and should be used in conjunction with setting performance goals. If effective feedback is given to employees on their progress towards their goals, employee performance will improve. People need to know in a timely manner how they’re doing, what’s working, and what’s not. Get your employees into the habit of giving and receiving feedback. 
3. Support employee development and success- Building organizational bench strength is just good business. By investing in your employee’s development, you ensure your organization has the built-in knowledge skills and experience it needs to succeed, both today and tomorrow. It’s also an effective way to improve employee retention.

Managers and HR’s should engage employees to identify the learning activities most appropriate to their needs. However, once the performance management is accomplished, it is also important to understand what actions need to be rewarded and how. This is where the reward management system steps in. Besides measuring employee performance, giving them actual feedback for their improvement, it is also necessary to acknowledge them for their outstanding performance and reward them accordingly. This tie-up between the reward and performance should be made for employee retention and their commitment to work, which ultimately improvise the contributing factor of the employee.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]On one hand you reward performance and on the other, you also motivate awardees to keep performing consistently to stay in the hall of fame. This may, in turn, motivate their peers to work towards these rewards and enjoy the benefits these rewards have to offer. Many think that appraisal (measuring performance) is the only necessary branch out from the performance management system. This, however, isn’t true. Employees today need benefits and incentives are that are linked to their performance and sincerity and efforts and not on the basis of a job title. There is no need for employees to wait in line to avail benefits of seniority or a pay raise. Employees now can be rewarded instantly with Let’s Buzzz. An easy way to engage employees and reward performance. Instant rewards are like a pat on the back for employee achievements, which are usually forgotten by the time annual appraisals approach. Why wait to be rewarded? Why leave out the unsung silent heroes of the organization? Reward employees on their performance and achievements in real-time. This is a more welcome and appreciated approach to creating an engaged and motivated workforce. Instant rewards ensure motivation and continuous improvement in the minds of employees. 

Let’s Buzzz enables you to reward employees on their performance and achievements in real-time. Want to know more, click here to request a demo.